Fiestas seem to be the usual cheap assembled junk that has been imported from China like everything else.Time to ban that "high quality" junk!

If it were only that easy. Just about everything we buy these days seems to be made in China. Some of these produsts are good quality, but I've found a lot of it to be garbage. However, banning these goods outright would lead to a major shortage of goods on the shelves for that exact reason - there's just too many low-quality products out there.

For example, I was in Home Depot a few weeks ago and yet another guy walked up to the manager of the power tools aisle and asked if they had any tools that weren't made in China. The manager gave him an outright "no", and he walked out after telling the manager he would be shopping elsewhere from now on.

Do you know what this manager said as the guy left? "Good luck with that, buddy. You're gonna need it." (Yet another shining example of excellent customer service... )

Fortunately, there's very simple yet effective way to take care of the problem of stores that sell low-quality junk:

Vote with your wallet and shop somewhere else.

Also, don't bother complaining to a manager about it, either, as they're too busy (or too indifferent) to do anything. Write a letter or send an email to the manufacturing company's head office instead. And while you're at it, send another copy to the head office of the store you didn't buy it from too. (Hey - it's a bit of a long shot, but it's been known to work.)

There's another thing that can be done, too, but it takes a bit of work. Remember the flaming Dell laptop videos a few years ago that sparked the biggest notebook battery recall in history? The same trick would certainly work for other products, I'm sure.

Unlike propane, you'll never wake up scorched and naked in another county because you mishandled a bag of briquettes.

Thanks for the info, Dave. My brother-in-law just bought a Broil King Sovereign XL 6 months ago and it's affected by the recall. I've just emailed him about this.

EDIT: I just saw the video for the Consumer Reports article, and it looks like these grills have some very nasty flareups indeed.

Oh - you can also add anything manufactured by "BBQ TEK" to the list of cheap BBQs. They rebrand their units for a lot of stores, too, so you may want to look closely before buying them. Basically this company just makes very shoddy units - I've worked with about a dozen of their different models and all of them have had issues with rust and with bad burners within a year.

Unlike propane, you'll never wake up scorched and naked in another county because you mishandled a bag of briquettes.